Fifty-five years ago he graduated at law, and on that occasion said: “Two races share to-day the soil of Canada. The French and English races have not always been friends; but I hasten to say it, and I say it to our glory, that race hatreds are finished on Canadian soil. It matters not the language the people speak or the altars at which they kneel.”
The advice he gave the young men of a Liberal Club in Montreal reveals his philosophic temperament: “Let me give you a word of good counsel. During your career you will have to suffer many things which will appear to you as supreme injustice. Let me say to you that you should never allow your religious convictions to be affected by anything which appears to you an injustice. Let me ask of you never to allow your religious convictions to be affected by the acts of men. Your convictions are immortal; your convictions are not only immortal, but their base is eternal. Let your convictions be always calm, serene, and superior to the inevitable trials of life, and show to the world that Catholicism is compatible with the exercise of liberty in its highest acceptation.”
In a speech which he delivered in Quebec in 1894, he gave expression to his religious ideals in the following passage:
“In religion I belong to the school of Montalembert and Lacordaire, of the men who were the greatest perhaps of their age in loftiness of character and ability of thought. I know of no grander spectacle than that of Montalembert and Lacordaire, two adolescents, two children almost, undertaking to conquer in France freedom of education, and succeeding in their object after many years of struggle. I know of no finer spectacle than that furnished by Montalembert confronting the French bourgeoisie, impregnated, as they were, with that dissolving materialism, the Voltairean skepticism of the eighteenth century, and exclaiming: ‘We are the sons of the Crusaders and shall not retreat before the sons of Voltaire.’ I know of no greater or more beautiful spectacle than that of Lacordaire proclaiming from the pulpit of Notre Dame the truths of Christianity to the incredulous crowd, and teaching them that life is a sacrifice and is only rendered worthy by duty accomplished.”
Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s last appearance in London was at the Imperial Conference in 1911, and it was at this gathering that he made the notable statement,
“I represent a country which has no grievances.”
All his hopes and aspirations are contained in his inspiring message to the Acadians of Nova Scotia: